58 — The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications • Vol. 1, No. 1 • Winter 2010
Up in Smoke:
How Antismoking Advertisements Have Changed
Youth Smoking Habits
Katelynn Sachs*
Senior majoring in Corporate Communications
Elon University
Abstract
To examine whether youth antismoking commercials in the “truth” campaign launched in 2000 had
a tendency to use more effective strategies to decrease youth smoking, this study selected five commercials and analyzed them according to a rating system based on the 1998 Goldman and Glantz study. The
commercials used effective strategies and ignored less effective ones, but the most effective ones were not
necessarily used most frequently. Since the youth do not respond in the same manner to each strategy in a
commercial, it will be vital to use different strategies, even though they are not effective in general, and reach
all the youth.
I. Introduction
In November 1998, the Master Settlement Agreement initiated a contract between the four largest
tobacco manufacturing companies and the Attorneys General in 46 states and five territories to appease state
lawsuits filed against these companies for their harmful tobacco products (Healton, 2001). For years, states
filed lawsuits seeking “monetary, equitable and injunctive relief” for state-financed, medical treatments related
to problems caused by these companies’ tobacco products (Master Settlement Agreement, 1998). Stemming
from this flood of lawsuits came the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), through which state governments
pursued “equitable relief and damages under state laws, including consumer protection and/or antitrust laws
in order to further the … States’ policies regarding public health, including policies adopted to achieve a significant reduction in smoking by youth” (Master Settlement Agreement, 1998). The contract required tobacco manufacturing companies to pay an annual sum to the states and
territories totaling $206 billion over the following 29 years (Master Settlement Agreement, 1998). With this
contract, several changes occurred within the regiment of the tobacco industry. The MSA restricted tobacco
companies’ direct marketing of tobacco products, allowed states to create “markedly expanded tobacco control programs” and provided for the creation of the American Legacy Foundation, a new organization to fight
and reduce tobacco use in the U.S. (Healton, 2001).
The Surgeon General first warned the American public in 1964 of the harmful effects tobacco use had
on health, later supporting this statement with reports that cigarette smoking was the number one prevent* Keywords: Antismoking advertisement; Youth smoking; Truth antismoking campaign; American
Legacy Foundation; Antismoking advertising strategies
Email: ksachs@elon.edu
How Antismoking Advertisements Have Changed Youth Smoking Habits by Katelynn Sachs — 59
able cause of death in the U.S. (Smoking and health, 1964). Exposing such information prompted a call to
action to improve American health in relation to tobacco use. In the years following this warning, researchers,
antismoking groups, health organizations and federal laws took action to enhance public health by means of
reducing tobacco use in the U.S. Antismoking campaigns were launched with a variety of designs, tactics
and target audiences to meet this goal. Although these campaigns were found to be successful in decreasing overall smoking in the U.S., this achievement was more significant among adults than youth, for whom
the success of antismoking campaigns was seen as “questionable” (Barton, Chassin, Presson, & Sherman,
1982). With about 80 percent of smokers starting the habit before age 18, it was important to target the nation’s youth tobacco use and address tobacco-related health concerns among this population (Truth Campaign Overview, 2009). This study will look at the effectiveness of antismoking strategies used in selected
television advertisements in the Truth Campaign. The study will attempt to determine the factors that impact
youth smoking trends.
In an attempt to better limit and prevent youth smoking, the MSA set new advertising limits on the
ability of tobacco companies to promote tobacco-related products. Tobacco companies were prohibited from
sponsoring events comprised mostly of youth, events where youth were paid participants, at athletic events
and at concerts, from sponsoring athletic teams or leagues and from providing free samples where youth
could easily gain access (Master Settlement Agreement, 1998). Limitations included brand name sponsoring
only one event per every twelve months, a lesser ability to advertise tobacco products through sponsorships
and prohibitions on using tobacco brand names in stadium or arena names (Master Settlement Agreement,
1998). The use of cartoon characters in tobacco advertisements was banned, companies were required to
eliminate outdoor and transit advertisements and were required to replace all pro-tobacco billboard advertisements with “alternative advertising intended to discourage the use of Tobacco Products by Youth” (Master
Settlement Agreement, 1998).
The American Legacy Foundation (ALF) was created mainly for the purposes of supporting the study
and creation of programs to reduce youth tobacco usage and abuse in the U.S. and creating educational
programs to prevent tobacco-related disease in the U.S. (Master Settlement Agreement, 1998). The ALF had
four primary goals at the time it was created: to reduce youth tobacco use, to reduce exposure to secondhand
smoke within all populations, to increase the successful quit rate of smoking within all ages and populations
and to reduce disparities in access to prevention and cessation services and in exposure to secondhand
smoke (Healton, 2001). Among the programs and activities implemented by the ALF was the nationwide
2000 truth campaign that was specifically aimed at 12- to 17-year-olds to prevent smoking among this at-risk
youth population. The campaign worked to expose the tactics of the tobacco industry, the truth about tobacco
addiction, and the health effects and social consequences of smoking by presenting youth with facts and
information about such topics, allowing them to make their own informed decision about the use of tobacco
(Truth Campaign Overview, 2009). The campaign relied on input from youth within the target age range,
known as the “youth voice,” to formulate antismoking advertisements to counter those produced by tobacco
manufacturing companies (Healton, 2001). Truth sought to replace the tobacco industry’s attractive image of
smokers with a truthful alternate identity (Farrelly, Davis, Haviland, Messeri, & Healton, 2002). Such truthful
knowledge put youth in control about the decision to smoke and portrayed those who chose not to smoke as
rebellious, risky, intelligent, empowered, independent and tolerant in their decision not to smoke cigarettes
(Arnold Worldwide, “Brand Truth”).
According to Arnold Worldwide, the marketing agency for ALF, youth who were open to learning
about the truth about smoking were also open to other “sensation-seeking behaviors,” earning them the
nickname, “sensation seekers,” for whom a “Just-Say-No” strategy would not work (“Brand Truth”). For this
reason, truth advertisements avoided directly telling youth not to smoke, instead showing “graphic images
depicting stark facts” about tobacco-related death and disease and the manipulative marketing practices of
tobacco companies (Farrelly, Davis, Haviland, Messeri, & Healton, 2005).
The first wave of the national truth campaign in 2000 featured multiple print and television advertisements providing information to youth about the social costs, health effects, and addictiveness of tobacco
(Healton, 2001). This “edgy” campaign adopted orange and white as its signature colors and marketed its
message of “the truth about smoking” as a brand rather than a message, easily identifiable by the campaign’s
logo (Farrelly, et al., 2002). ALF launched a subsequent campaign in 2001 called Infect Truth to run alongside the original truth campaign and educate youth about harmful ingredients found inside cigarettes and
other tobacco products (Truth Campaign Overview, 2009). Each Infect Truth commercial showed how people
60 — The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications • Vol. 1, No. 1 • Winter 2010
became “infected” with the truth about smoking, denoted by a large white asterisk that appeared above these
people’s heads after they learned the truth. The campaign metaphorically compared the truth about smoking
with a contagious disease that infects others, relying on the slogan, “knowledge is contagious” (Truth Campaign Overview, 2009).
Truth was the first nationwide antismoking campaign aimed at youth that was successful at preventing
and stopping smoking among the youth population. The campaign design used data from previous state antismoking campaigns in Massachusetts, Maine, California, and most notably, Florida. The Florida campaign,
also titled “truth,” was successful in decreasing cigarette use among youth between 1998 and 2000. Bauer,
Johnson, Hopkins, and Brooks performed a study in 2000 analyzing the success of the campaign by giving
self-administered surveys to middle and high school students regarding cigarette use and intentions. Students were asked to categorize themselves as never users, experimenters, current users, frequent smokers,
or former users of cigarettes for each of the four surveys given between 1998 and 2000. Over the two-year
period of the campaign, current cigarette use decreased by 40 percent among middle school students and
by 18 percent among high school students. The study’s results also showed an increase of students who
had never smoked and decreases in percentages of experimenters and frequent smokers for both middle and
high school students. The national truth campaign was a success among the youth antismoking trend, as shown in a 2005
study performed by Farrelly, Davis, Haviland, Messeri, and Healton, “Evidence of a Dose-Response Relationship Between ‘truth’ Antismoking Ads and Youth Smoking Prevalence.” It was the first to evaluate the
behavioral outcomes of the national campaign by measuring how the “dose” of campaign exposure received
affected youth smoking prevalence between 2000 and 2002 through self-administered surveys given to students in eighth, 10th, and 12th grades. The surveys were given in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and showed an overall decrease in smoking prevalence by 36 percent, with eight-grade students exhibiting the greatest decrease
at 45 percent. Before the campaign, annual percentage decline for youth smoking rates in all grades was 3.2
percent, compared to 6.8 percent after the launch of the campaign. One of the most important results of the
study showed that 22 percent of decline in national youth smoking prevalence was attributed to the success
of the truth campaign and that overall smoking rates between 2000 and 2002 dropped by 1.5 percent, meaning about 300,000 youth chose to not smoke because of the truth campaign. This statistic is most emphasized in reports and reviews because it provided Americans with a definite figure of the number of youth that
were prevented from smoking between 2000 and 2002 solely because of the truth campaign.
II. Youth Antismoking Advertising Strategies
Before the launch of the truth campaign in 2000, many other youth antismoking advertising campaigns began to combat the problem of youth smoking using a variety of media and campaign designs. Many
researchers conducted studies and discussed how to best target youth with antismoking messages in advertising. These studies identified media campaigns as the medium most effective in reaching youth audiences,
determined that effective advertisements must specifically target the youth population and analyzed which
characteristics of youth advertisements made them effective in promoting antismoking messages.
Much of the data collected from prior studies of antismoking advertisements served as evidence that
until the late 1990s, media campaigns were an effective strategy to inform the public, especially youth, of the
effects of smoking. They used a variety of mediums to target youth with antismoking campaigns, including
television, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards. A study analyzing California’s statewide antismoking campaign from 1990 to 1992 demonstrated a change in overall smoking habits because of the campaign’s
influence. The results showed a 12.2 percent decrease in smoking consumption during the campaign,
increased awareness of smoking advertisements, decreased tendencies of nonsmokers thinking about starting to smoke and increased health-enhancing attitudes about smoking (Goldman & Glantz, 1998). In addition, 6.6 percent of smokers who quit within that time frame reported having seen or heard an antismoking
advertisement, which factored into their decision to quit smoking (Goldman and Glantz, 1998). Although this
campaign did not specifically target youth, it demonstrated a media campaign’s ability to effectively reach
target audiences.
Another study measuring respondents’ ability to recall advertisements four years after the start of
a statewide antismoking media campaign in Massachusetts, found that youth exposed to advertisements,
How Antismoking Advertisements Have Changed Youth Smoking Habits by Katelynn Sachs — 61
especially those on television, were more likely to have an accurate, rather than an “inflated perception,” of
youth smoking, and that television was the most powerful medium among those used in the study for reaching
adolescents (Siegel & Biener, 2000). In addition, the results showed that youth had significantly more knowledge about tobacco use, were more likely to cite additional reasons other than health influencing them not to
smoke, and had stronger antismoking attitudes than youth in other states because of the televised advertisements (Goldman and Glantz, 1998).
In order for antismoking messages to be effective among youth, it was important to specifically target
youth with antismoking advertisements created solely for them rather than with advertisements created to
address a broad audience. It was found that youth responded better to advertisements using environments
and characters similar to those they were familiar with (Beaudoin, 2002). For example, adult antismoking
advertisements often addressed the long-term health consequences of smoking, to which youth showed much
less concern and interest because they associated such characteristics with adulthood and old age (Barton et
al., 1982). Youth also showed more concern about the role of smoking in social settings, particularly because
their age range puts them at the stages of development in which they are most aware and concerned of their
appearance to others and are most susceptible to conforming to the social norms of their peers (Barton et al.,
1982). Antismoking advertisements adopting similar social settings would be more appealing and familiar,
and in turn, more effective in reaching youth.
Antismoking advertisement campaigns have implemented a variety of strategies over the years to better reach target audiences with antismoking messages. The most effective media campaigns used strategies
in their advertisements specific to a target audience in hopes of better communicating antismoking messages,
which was especially true regarding antismoking advertisements aimed at youth. Many ineffective youth
antismoking campaigns did not take into account the fact that youth and adults respond differently to certain
messages and strategies. Many studies analyzed a variety of strategies used in antismoking campaigns to
determine some of the most and least effective when targeting youth with antismoking messages.
III. Evaluation of Antismoking Advertising Campaign by Goldman and
Glantz
The 1998 study performed by Goldman and Glantz identified eight major advertising strategies populating antismoking advertisements and analyzed them to determine which strategies were most effective in
prevention of or cessation of smoking among youth. The strategies identified were industry manipulation, cessation, secondhand smoke, addiction, youth access, short-term effects, long-term health effects and romantic
rejection.
Industry manipulation
Industry manipulation in antismoking advertisements aimed to expose the tobacco industry as deceitful and manipulative in its attempts to attract new users and sell more tobacco products at the expense of
Americans’ health (Goldman & Glantz, 1998). The tobacco industry targets youth because “they need children and teens to replace their dead and disabled smokers” to keep tobacco sales successful (Associated
Press, 2005). Early advertisements using this strategy were not as effective because they used a confusing
tactic by referring to the tobacco industry as “they.” In a youth campaign effort directed by the Center for
Disease Control’s Office of Smoking and Health that used “they” to refer to the tobacco industry, 38 percent of
youth viewers thought the messages promoted smoking and more than half thought “they” referred to family and peers; only 10 percent perceived “they” as the tobacco industry (McKenna & Williams, 1993). Later
advertisements clarified the use of “they” and were more successful in contradicting the glamorous image of
smokers portrayed in tobacco advertisements.
Youth adopt certain delinquent behaviors to enhance self-esteem, which explains why they often
turned to smoking as a form of rebellion (Barton et al., 1982). Focusing on industry manipulation showed
youth that by using smoking as a rebellious tool, they were actually being manipulated by tobacco companies
to conform and submit to smoking habits (Beaudoin, 2002). Youth did not like the idea of secretly being manipulated through a behavior they believed allowed them rebellion and independence. Industry manipulation
advertisements portrayed the tobacco industry as “the bad guy,” which made it a highly effective strategy in
62 — The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications • Vol. 1, No. 1 • Winter 2010
communicating antismoking messages to both youth and adults (Goldman & Glantz, 1998).
Cessation
Antismoking advertisements traditionally focused on conveying the message of cessation, which
worked more effectively when targeting adults rather than youth. Most smokers become addicted as teenagers instead of as adults, so promoting smoking prevention was shown to be more effective among youth than
promoting cessation (Beaudoin, 2002). Advertising smoking prevention before youth started smoking was a
better way to reach them instead of telling them to quit something they already started. Pairing cessation with
other more effective strategies also better promoted antismoking messages to youth (Beaudoin, 2002). Secondhand smoke
Secondhand smoke advertisements were found to be highly effective for both youth and adults
because they portrayed children as the innocent bystanders affected by others’ smoking habits (Goldman &
Glantz, 1998). Neither youth nor adults wanted to see children as helpless victims of cigarette smokers and
were made more aware of that fact through antismoking advertisements promoting awareness of secondhand
smoke.
Addiction
Showing the addictive quality of tobacco products was effective in targeting youth because it allowed
them to realize how addiction would force them to give up control of their lives. Exposing tobacco as an addictive product that realistically attracted young, naive smokers and hooked them for life made youth realize the negative qualities of tobacco companies’ deceiving ads promoting the positive qualities of cigarettes
(Goldman & Glantz, 1998). The naturally rebellious streak within youth did not want to lose control through
cigarette addiction. In addition, exposing to youth the addictive side of tobacco as a lifelong trap for those
who used it worked with preventing new smokers from starting because more people began to smoke as
youth rather than as adults (Beaudoin, 2002).
Youth access
Antismoking advertisements focusing on ease of youth access to tobacco products were more effective among adults than youth, who were less concerned with the fact that they and their peers could easily
acquire cigarettes and other tobacco products from vending machines, stores, family members and friends
(Goldman & Glantz, 1998). Among youth, these advertisements were more effective with older adolescents,
who showed more concern regarding youth access because to them, the term “youth” applied to younger
adolescents who they viewed as children. Children having access to tobacco products was more concerning
than older adolescents having access. Studies showed that restricting youth access would not prevent them
from obtaining cigarettes because they would get them if they wanted to badly enough (Goldman & Glantz,
1998). The youth access strategy often redirected concern toward addressing a vending machine problem
rather than a youth access problem to cigarettes as well (Goldman & Glantz, 2005).
Short-term effects
Focusing on the short-term effects of smoking in youth antismoking advertisements included both
health and social effects. Short-term health consequences, such as yellowed teeth, unpleasant body odor,
bad breath, and stained fingers, reach youth through “a credible appeal to their vanity” (Wooster, 2000).
Youth did not want to be seen or associated with such negative characteristics. Highlighting these health effects also contradicted the tobacco industry’s portrayal of smokers as glamorous, sophisticated, and socially
successful, an image which could influence youth to start smoking in order to achieve such characteristics
(Barton et al., 1982).
The youth within the age range for the population targeted by antismoking advertisements was most
concerned about “maximum conformity to peer norms” and therefore was more “susceptible to adopting a
certain behavior as a form of impression management” (Barton et al., 1982). Starting to smoke was an example of such behavior. Antismoking advertisements focused on the short-term effects smoking would have
on the social lives of these youth in an attempt to dissuade them from smoking. A study measuring sixthgrade and tenth-grade ratings of smoking and nonsmoking models’ personality traits in antismoking advertise-
How Antismoking Advertisements Have Changed Youth Smoking Habits by Katelynn Sachs — 63
ments rated smokers as less healthy, less wise, less good, less obedient, less likely to do well in school and
less desirable as friends (Barton et al., 1982). Since youth would not want their peers to link them with any of
these negative traits, associating such traits with smoking allowed youth to picture the social consequences of
smoking.
Some advertisements emphasizing short-term consequences used emotional pulls to influence youth
and better convey antismoking messages. Humor was proven to be an effective strategy for communicating
antismoking messages because youth are attracted to humor and can often recall advertisements because of
the humor used (Beaudoin, 2002). However, youth reported that using humor to convey these messages often “trivializes the seriousness of smoking,” which may instead downplay the seriousness of short-term health
effects and convey this less serious message to youth (Goldman & Glantz, 1998).
Long-term health effects
Stressing long-term health effects in youth antismoking advertisements included sharing information
about tobacco-related diseases, such as emphysema and cancer, as well as death. Youth tend to live in the
present and believe themselves invulnerable, even to the long-term effects of smoking cigarettes (Beaudoin,
2002). Antismoking advertisements that instilled fear or threat of disease or death were ineffective because
youth associated these consequences with adulthood and old age, thus violating the “time perspective” of
youth (Beaudoin, 2002). They were also already aware of the potential for such consequences, which were
printed on every pack of cigarettes, and on average did not feel threatened by them unless they had personal
experience with someone with a smoking-related disease (Goldman & Glantz, 1998).
Romantic rejection
Romantic rejection was often portrayed in antismoking advertisements in relation to short-term consequences of youth smoking, focusing on the fact that youth are most aware of how they appear to peers at
the target age range. Youth want to appear socially desirable by both the same and opposite sexes and may
conform more easily to behaviors, such as smoking, that would allow them to appear this way (Beaudoin,
2002). These antismoking advertisements worked to persuade youth that smoking was an undesirable characteristic leading to romantic rejection. Studies showed, however, that a person’s desirability did not have
a strong correlation with their smoking status; it was only related to whether the person was actually considered attractive and appealing (Barton et al., 1982). This showed that youth would be more concerned about
whether they are physically attractive to others rather than if they are smokers or nonsmokers.
Other strategies
Aiming antismoking advertisements at youth meant researching carefully to determine exactly how
to create advertisements they can understand and relate to. Some campaigns tried to achieve this by using
what was thought to be the language of youth at the time the campaign was launched. Lorillard Tobacco’s
youth antismoking campaign in 2000 connected with youth using the slogan, “Tobacco is whacko if you’re a
teen.” Though the underlying idea was to deter youth from smoking, using words such as “whacko” did not
prove to be most effective in communicating the message to youth. Stay Free! columnist Carrie McLaren
tested the effectiveness of this campaign’s use of the word “whacko” and published her findings in summer
2000. She compared common words on the youth-populated site Geocities.com, finding that “whacko” only
received 6,500 hits compared to “stupid” and “crap” having 383,500 and 168,600 hits, respectively. This lack
of commonality associated with “whacko” shows how an antismoking campaign’s attempt at using youth language fell short of its goal of communicating effectively with youth. Constant research must be performed for
campaign planners to stay in touch with youth, for whom “language, icons, and activities are a moving target”
(McKenna & Williams, 1993).
The Phillip Morris tobacco company also launched an antismoking campaign for youth as a result
of the MSA. The slogan of this campaign was “Think, Don’t Smoke,” which employed advertisements directly telling youth not to smoke. Farrelly et al. showed this campaign strategy to be very ineffective, instead
encouraging youth to think about and possibly start smoking (2002). Because of this lack of success, Phillip
Morris was criticized and suspected of creating the campaign to “buy respectability,” representing the common tendency of tobacco companies to spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on antismoking
campaigns while spending billions of dollars on promoting tobacco products (Farrelly et al., 2002; Associated
Press, 2005).
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IV. Method
The 1998 Goldman and Glantz study clearly identified what did or did not work when attempting to
target youth with antismoking messages. Each of the eight strategies most populous in youth antismoking
advertisements was determined to effective at various levels, with industry manipulation and secondhand
smoke to be the most effective when targeting youth with antismoking messages. This study provided breakthrough information for antismoking campaigns, allowing them to more effectively target youth with antismoking messages.
The truth campaign in 2000 was also extremely important in youth antismoking advertising because it
generated the strongest levels of receptivity of antismoking advertisements among youth until that point.
So this study examined whether the truth campaign was effective because its advertisements embraced factors that were found by Goldman and Glantz to strongly affect the youth. The author hypothesized
that:
The more effective a strategy in youth antismoking advertisements, the more often it will appear in
each of the truth commercials.
The five commercials analyzed in this study were produced for the truth campaign from 2000 to 2002.
Sources for the commercials include the website for Arnold Worldwide, the marketing company for the truth
campaign, and Truthorange, the campaign’s YouTube resource.
To measure the effectiveness of each commercial, the author developed a rating system based on
the Goldman and Glantz study. The most effective strategy, such as industry manipulation or secondhand
smoke, was given 4 points while a strategy with unknown effects, 0 point. Strategies with other levels of effectiveness were given corresponding numerical ratings in between as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Effectiveness ratings of the eight advertising strategies
Advertising Strategy
Effectiveness of Strategy
Rating
Industry manipulation
High
4
Secondhand smoke
High
4
Addiction
Average
3
Short-term effects
Moderate
2
Youth access
Low
1
Long-term health effects
Low
1
Romantic rejection
Low
1
Cessation
Unknown
0
V. Findings
Each of five selected commercials in the truth campaigned was analyzed and assigned total scores
based on the rating level in Table 1 above for effectiveness of strategies in each commercial. The total score
for effectivness as indicated below was determined by summing the rating scores for the strategies used in
each commercial.
Box of Poison (7 points): industry manipulation, short-term, and long-term health effects
The commercial, “Box of Poison,” was created as part of the Infect Truth campaign. This commercial shows two teenagers in a post office attempting to ship an “arsenic and cyanide spreading mechanism.”
They try to ease the postal workers’ skepticism by explaining the materials are packed tightly and won’t leak
out of the packaging, but the workers tell them what they are trying to do is dangerous, hazardous, and illegal.
The teens reply that they don’t want to do anything illegal; they just want to ship a box of cigarettes. At this
How Antismoking Advertisements Have Changed Youth Smoking Habits by Katelynn Sachs — 65
point they flip open the lid on top of the box and expose the package of cigarettes with a message on the inside of the box saying, “There are over 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke.” The postal workers are speechless for a moment and the trademark white asterisk from the Infect Truth campaign appears over both their
heads, signaling they have been “infected” with the truth (Truthorange, 2009, Box of Poison).
“Box of Poison” employs the strategies of industry manipulation, long-term health effects, and shortterm (health) effects of smoking. Industry manipulation is shown because viewers can interpret that the industry does not reveal the caustic ingredients found in tobacco products and instead portraying those who use
the products in a positive light. Such an image does not reflect the long-term health effects associated with
ingesting such ingredients, which are too dangerous to be mailed at a post office. Viewers may not know the
short-term or long-term health effects of these ingredients, but by portraying them as dangerous, hazardous,
and illegal to ship, they can infer that the ingredients will have negative health and long-term effects on users.
Baby Invasion (8 points): industry manipulation and secondhand smoke
The commercial, “Baby Invasion,” was also created as part of the Infect Truth campaign. This commercial shows hundreds of mechanically crawling and crying baby dolls being placed arbitrarily in the middle
of a busy urban plaza. The dolls are dressed in diapers and orange shirts, the signature color of the truth
campaign. Passersby stop in their daily routine to watch the scene and many pick up the dolls to read the
message printed on their shirts. The message reads:
“How do infants avoid secondhand smoke?
‘At some point they begin to crawl.’
-Tobacco Executive, 1996”
After the message is shown, a wide-angle shot of the baby doll-covered plaza shows people picking
up the baby dolls to read the message and the trademark white asterisk from the Infect Truth campaign appears over their heads, signaling they have been “infected” with truth (Truthorange, 2009, Baby Invasion).
This commercial uses the strategies of secondhand smoke and industry manipulation. Secondhand
smoke is the more obvious focus of the commercial with the idea that babies are helpless to avoid inhaling
secondhand smoke until they are old enough to be able to crawl away from it. Industry manipulation is a less
obvious strategy used but is highlighted by deglamorizing the positive image the tobacco industry portrays of
smokers when their tobacco smoke negatively affects others. This is shown as an especially hard-hitting fact
because babies are used to represent those affected by tobacco users’ smoke.
1200 (4 points): addiction and long-term health effects
“1200” was one of the commercials produced as part of the original truth campaign. In the commercial, youth wearing t-shirts each with a number out of 1200 gather together in a street intersection in the city in
front of the headquarters of a tobacco manufacturing company. All at once, the youth collapse on the ground
and act as if they are completely lifeless, frozen in place and many with their eyes still open. One person
remains standing, holding a sign that faces the tobacco company’s building that reads “Tobacco kills 1200
people a day” on one side, and “Ever thinking about taking a day off?” on the other side (Arnold Worldwide,
1200).
This commercial uses the strategies of long-term health effects and addiction. It uses a visual representation of what 1200 people looks like to emphasize the long-term health consequence of death from using
tobacco. The fact such a great of a number of people die every day from using tobacco products shows the
addictive quality tobacco has on its users.
Ratman (7 points): industry manipulation, short-term, and long-term health effects
“Ratman” was another commercial produced as part of the Infect Truth campaign. In the commercial,
a human-sized rat walks past people down an urban street, breathing heavily and unevenly, and eventually
collapses on the sidewalk. The rat holds up a sign saying, “There’s cyanide in cigarette smoke; same as in rat
poison” (Arnold Worldwide, Ratman).
This commercial features the strategies of industry manipulation, short-term effects, and long-term
health effects of smoking. The human-sized rat dying from ingesting rat poison is metaphorically equal to a
person dying from smoking cigarettes. This is a stark contradiction to the glamorous smoking image portrayed by tobacco companies, as well as a useful metaphor for demonstrating the long-term consequence
of death from smoking cigarettes. Viewers may not know the short-term or other long-term health effects of
cyanide, but by labeling it as an ingredient in something that kills rats, viewers can imagine that the effects are
66 — The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications • Vol. 1, No. 1 • Winter 2010
negative on one’s health. Average people in the commercial viewed the rat with disgust and shock, representing the short-term social effects smoking can have on how a smoker appears to his or her peers.
Body Bags ( 4points): addiction and long-term health effects
“Body Bags” was one of the commercials produced for the original truth campaign. It shows people
unloading hundreds of body bags, each clearly labeled “BODY BAG,” on the sidewalk outside a major tobacco company’s headquarters. The amount of body bags covers a significant portion of the sidewalk outside
the building, as shown from an overhead view from a helicopter. People staple flyers on nearby telephone
poles and street signs that read, “Every day 1200 people die from tobacco” (Truthorange, 2009, Body Bags).
This commercial employs the techniques of both long-term health effects and addiction. Using
hundreds of dead bodies is a clear demonstration of the long-term consequence of health issues leading to
death because of addiction to cigarettes. Though viewers may not personally know how addictive cigarettes
can be, the fact that people cannot quit because of the addictive qualities of the product and therefore could
eventually suffer health consequences or die presents a strong message exposing such qualities and the
long-term health effects of smoking.
VI. Discussion
These truth commercials employed five of the eight strategies identified by Goldman and Glantz:
industry manipulation, short-term effects, long-term health effects, secondhand smoke, and addiction, as
shown in Table 2. The frequency (number of times the five selected commercials used a specific advertising
strategy) is indicated in Table 2.
Table 2: Relationship between effective rating and frequency
Advertising Strategy
Effectiveness of Strategy
Rating
Frequency
Industry manipulation
High
4
3
Secondhand smoke
High
4
1
Addiction
Average
3
2
Short-term effects
Moderate
2
2
Youth access
Low
1
0
Long-term health effects
Low
1
4
Romantic rejection
Low
1
0
Cessation
Unknown
0
0
“Baby Invasion” scored eight points by incorporating secondhand smoke and industry manipulation
strategies, the most effective truth commercial among the five. In terms of effectiveness, this commercial
was followed by “Box of Poison and “Ratman,” each with a total score of seven points; and “1200” and “Body
Bags,” each with a total score of 4 points.
Industry manipulation and secondhand smoke were identified as the most effective strategies when
targeting youth with antismoking messages, explaining the success of “Baby Invasion” in this study. Although
“Box of Poison” and “Ratman” also addressed industry manipulation, they both used a combination of other
strategies found to be less effective by Goldman and Glantz, attributing to their lower ratings. Because neither “1200” nor “Body Bags” used strategies identified as the most effective in targeting youth with antismoking messages, they were rated lowest and shown to be the least effective.
These findings do not seem to support the hypothesis that the more effective a strategy -- like industry manipulation and secondhand smoke – the more prevalent it will be in the commercials analyzed. For
example, the top two strategies were used less frequently than the strategy of longer-term health effects.
How Antismoking Advertisements Have Changed Youth Smoking Habits by Katelynn Sachs — 67
However, the commercials did not use ineffective strategies, such as youth access, romantic rejection and
cessation.
This study shows that “Body Bags” was rated as one of the least effective commercials in comparison with the others. In contrast, this commercial was actually the most memorable and effective within the
first two years of the truth and Infect Truth campaigns according to AFL statistics (Truth Campaign Overview,
2009). Many studies analyzing the truth campaign advertisements cited the “Body Bags” commercial while
discussing the success of commercials in helping decrease youth smoking trends.
These alternative views on the “Body Bags” commercial suggests that the Goldman and Glantz study
did not provide the best framework for analyzing advertisements within the truth campaign. Although the study
was successful in identifying effective strategies for antismoking advertisements, the truth campaign began a
new age of targeting youth with antismoking advertisements using a very different advertising approach from
those advertisements analyzed in the Goldman and Glantz study. This study, therefore, explains the inconsistency between the most effective commercial identified by this study and that identified by statistical data from
the truth campaign.
VII. Conclusion
The truth commercials did use effective strategies and ignored less effective ones. However, they
did not necessarily incorporate more effective strategies more frequently. Not all youth respond in the same
manner to commercials implementing a certain strategy, so it is important to use several different strategies
within each advertisement to ensure they will be effective in targeting all youth. The use of “youth voice” in
truth commercials is an example of a different approach to creating and producing effective commercials, an
approach requiring constant research to determine the most modern, and therefore most effective, strategies
in communicating antismoking messages. The truth campaign stands out in the field of youth antismoking
advertising as an example to show how a unique combination of various tactics and characteristics draws the
attention of the target audience on a nationwide scale.
The major limitation of this study is that only a small portion of truth advertisements were analyzed,
and they did not encompass all the advertisements created in the truth campaign because they were all commercials. The campaign included a variety of media to convey the advertisements, but this study focused
solely on some of the video advertisements.
The reliability of the sources for the original truth and Infect Truth advertisements could have been
better since they were all online. Most versions of the commercials were found online, allowing for them to be
posted by anonymous and perhaps unreliable sources that could have altered the original content, leading to
skewed results. The five commercials analyzed in this study were those acquired from sources directly connected to the truth campaign, so they are mostly likely to be genuine. The size of the sample for this study
must have resulted in somewhat inaccurate findings, but a bigger sample including altered advertisements
from unreliable sources could have compromised the results, too.
Further studies can be done with a larger sample, or a sample including commercials using a different
medium, such as newspaper ads. Another study can be done whether the effectiveness of each strategy can
be determined not only by its presence but also by how well it was implemented in each commercial, too.
Acknowledgements
This author is thankful to Dr. Don Grady at Elon University for his supervision and advice, without
which the article could not be published. The author also appreciates numerous reviewers who have helped
revise this article.
68 — The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications • Vol. 1, No. 1 • Winter 2010
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